


sympathique

by amare, lazulisong



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Going to Hell, I guess this is why people have shame accounts, M/M, OH WAIT I DON'T HAVE SHAME, i was dared
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amare/pseuds/amare, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulisong/pseuds/lazulisong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Bruv, I don't know what you're thinking, but I ain't going to do it," Eggsy tells him.</p><p>"A pity," says Merlin, sighing. "Half the trouble I have is convincing the rotten little beasts to keep their knots to themselves."</p><p>Eggsy can't even argue. Alphas are the <i>worst</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you give me fever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rageprufrock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/gifts), [amare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amare/gifts).



> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLaY4aksfRo> ← sympathetique by pink martini
> 
> by the way tonight I was actually accused of having classy taste in music and after I stopped laughing myself into a hernia at the laundromat, I pointed out that my grandfather was such a jazz nerd that he would tape radio broadcasts reel to reel back in the 1960s.
> 
> Also, come to think of it, my mother was convinced that listening to any music made after she personally was in high school would cause us to become Satan-worshipping promiscuous lesbians. Unless it was praise and worship music of course.
> 
> You can see how well that worked out for her. 
> 
> Alternate music for this of course is "Fever" by Peggy Lee. [Nothing will be weird as the late sixties](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Uw1lJ2C9U), just putting it out there. I recommend the version with Ray Charles and Natalie Cole fwiw.

"I go mental when I'm on heat," he tells Merlin during his first exam. 

"Heat and rut are technically classified as dementias," Merlin says. "Also, a gentleman does not use words like 'mental' to refer to a natural process like going into heat." He raises one eyebrow, which always makes Eggsy look like a right prat, but on Merlin looks cynical and sophisticated. Eggsy wonders if he'll be able to do it by the time he gets out of this job interview from hell. 

"No, I mean real mental," says Eggsy. "I put two blokes and a bird in hospital my first heat out of secondary, before the Marines."

Merlin's eyebrows shoot up. "That … is rather unusual," he says, and looks down at his clipboard. Eggsy reckons there must be some sort of thing that he can't see -- a hologram? -- because he wrote just barely above the surface of the clipboard and his eyes, behind the glasses, are tracking like he's reading.

Eggsy waits patiently. He has zero illusions about the amount of privacy his health records have around Kingsman ever since Harry fucking Hart tagged him with a fucking spy tracer and scared the hell out of Dean and his mum. Not that Dean didn't deserve it, but Eggsy has had low expectations for his personal privacy ever since.

"The attending said your symptoms were similar to an imprinted omega separated from their mate," said Merlin, looking up.

"And see," said Eggsy, "that's just fucking weird, because do I look like an imprinted omega to you?"

Merlin stares at him, reaches out and tilts his head to the side. "No bonding scar," he says thoughtfully. Eggsy allows him to feel the bonding gland carefully. His hands are dry and warm, rather brusque, but not unkind. "Your gland seems intact."

"Which you would expect, right, cos I ain't ever gotten within twelve feet of an alpha if I was in heat or they was in rut before I tried to rip their heads off," says Eggsy. 

Merlin looks really thoughtful.

"Bruv, I don't know what you're thinking, but I ain't going to do it," Eggsy tells him.

"A pity," says Merlin, sighing. "Half the trouble I have is convincing the rotten little beasts to keep their knots to themselves."

Eggsy can't even argue. Alphas are the _worst_.

* * *

When Eggsy's heat comes on it's as miserable as it ever is, maybe even more, because Merlin is Satan incarnate and talks him into being a teachable moment for the others. He opens the air exchange hatch and lets their smell into the safe room, and Eggsy goes absolutely nutters screaming and trying to pull the door open. 

Merlin waits for the psychological moment to turn on the sound to let the other prospects hear him screaming "I'll fucking kill you, I will! I'll kill you! Get away from me!" and baring his teeth at the alphas through the window until they take three hasty steps back. 

Merlin pipes in some sort of soothing scent and Eggsy spends the next four days alternately wanking and catching up on his advanced trig, because apparently that's a thing a spy needs. Trigonometry. 

Once he's recovered, Merlin goes with him back to the barracks, and watches in evident satisfaction as seven alphas scramble back at the sight of Eggsy. Even Roxy looks nervous, and Eggsy bares his teeth just enough to get the point across.

"I trust you lot have learned a valuable lesson on why a gentleman -- or a lady --" he adds, with a bow towards Roxy, "-- approaches an omega gentleman or lady with caution?" 

"He went mental!" says Charlie, who apparently has exactly zero self-preservation instincts. "Unbonded omegas don't go _mental_ when an alpha approaches them!"

"Yes," said Merlin, "well done being creepy, Mr Hesketh, and studying an omega's neck, you do Britain's schools proud. Perhaps you would like to write me two thousand words -- with sources, of course, no less than eight -- about the reasons why omegas can, and do, er, 'go mental' when faced with an alpha they have no desire to further their acquaintance with. And then perhaps all of you can write me a thousand words, minimum, about the proper way to treat an omega. Mr Unwin, you may write me a thousand words on how to treat a beta gentleman or lady desirous of furthering your acquaintance."

Charlie opens his mouth, but Merlin stares him down. When he drops his eyes, Merlin looks around the room and says, "What have we learned today, you lot?"

"Never approach a target without knowing what you're getting into," says Roxy promptly. 

"And…?"

"Don't underestimate people."

"Very good, Miss Morton, ten points to Ravenclaw." Merlin eyes her benevolently, and then turns a maliciously amused look on the others. "I assume all of you have had rut partners in the past? Yes? It's a bit different going through a rut without a partner, and I hope you will take it as the valuable learning experience that it is."

* * *

Charlie's an overachiever and he wants to prove his dominance over the rest of the group, so somehow he manages to go into rut first. Eggsy and the others watch from a safe distance as he staggers out from the safe room afterward and bursts into heaving, snotty tears at the sight of his dog. His dog spends ten minutes enduring the indignity of being smeared all over with hormonal tears while wearing the expression of an animal who has found out that there was no God. When Charlie looks up finally, he sniffs the air and his expression brightens at the sight of Eggsy. He scurries up to the group. "Unwin!" he says eagerly. "Do you need anything? Can I get you food? Can I get you a coat? Do you want my pudding? I saved you some of my pudding."

"What the fuck," says Eggsy, fascinated. He's never seen an alpha without a rut partner afterward. Back home alphas got married even earlier than omegas, and if they weren't they were the sort of person who boasted they could find a new omega for every rut. You never saw them until they were swaggering back around a week later, waxing pornographic about their knot. He'd never believed them, because he ain't an idiot, but this is far beyond his wildest hopes and dreams.

"You've got really pretty hair, Unwin," says Charlie. "Can I call you Gary? Your hair is so pretty." He reaches out to pet Eggsy's hair and Eggsy has him flat on his face in the next instant. "Ow," says Charlie dreamily, as Eggsy bends his arms back. 

"That, Miss Morton, gentlemen," says Merlin, "is the effect of a rut on an alpha without a partner."

"You just smell so nice," says Charlie earnestly, and Eggsy does them all a favor and knocks him into unconsciousness.


	2. never know how much I care

The rest of the candidates' ruts follow along the same line as Charlie's, although one idiot gets aggressive and literally tries to kidnap JB so Eggsy will follow him into some sort of Stockholm syndrome situation. It's fine. They find JB and Barker and his dog in a nest he'd somehow managed to construct in the bowels of the facility. 

Eggsy was a little impressed by the cunning Barker had shown in gathering ten of his favorite chocolate bar, but he doesn't exactly cry when Merlin gives him the dressing down of the century and kicks him out on his arse.

Roxy's is the best, though, because she spends her four days in lock up, according to Merlin, pacing and muttering to herself, and when she gets out she marches straight up to Eggsy and shrieks, "And what did _you_ do, without me to look after you!" and bursts into tears. 

"Awww," says Eggsy, feeling soppily maternal, like he does when Daisy cries and cries and then reaches up for him. "There, there," he croons, petting Roxy's disheveled hair and letting her snuffle angrily into his shoulder. 

Because it's Roxy and the fist of her self-control could level small countries, nothing weird happens, even if toward the end of the hug she drags in a suspiciously lengthy inhale against the side of his neck. That seems to snap her out of it: she steps back and rubs a knuckle under her red eyes. Then she punches his arm. Some of Eggy's fondness evaporates as he rubs his smarting bicep.

"Oi!"

"We're never discussing this," she says primly, then her eyebrows draw together. "Oh, but have you eaten?"

Eggsy shoves her away, rolling his eyes.

The other candidates watch enviously, but they've learned a painful lesson in self-control over the past few months and none of them try to start any shit with Roxy. 

"Unwin," says Merlin, arriving out of bloody nowhere. Eggsy shifts into something resembling attention. "If I could have a word?"

Merlin never calls him by his last name unless something is really fucking wrong, so Eggsy follows him down the hallway and stops when Merlin does.

"Now, lad," says Merlin, almost gently. For a horrible moment Eggsy thinks of his mum, of Daisy, of the way he left them unprotected with Dean still -- 

"Harry's been injured, and he's in a coma," says Merlin, and Eggsy's first reaction is sick relief, and then the words really sink in and it takes an effort of will to keep standing.

* * *

Just being near Harry, even though he's in a coma like Sleeping Beauty or some shit, calms Eggsy down. Harry smells real good for an alpha, mostly because he has some sort of scent-suppressing cologne that he wears, or something like that. He's never asked. Maybe he's on suppressants. Maybe, Eggsy thinks, he had a beautiful omega mate and they died and so Harry's scent faded. Maybe Eggsy is hormonal and depressing himself.

Anyway, Harry Hart is too fucking class to go around advertising his knot, unlike Dean and his crowd, who had a disgusting habit of expressing their glands and smearing it all over themselves. Eggsy shudders in memory and JB whines. 

Eggsy sits down beside Harry's bed. "Hey, bruv," he says. JB puts his feet on Eggsy's calf, so he picks him up. It's a terrible habit, but Eggsy needs something -- someone -- to hold on to right now. That's the worst part of post-heat, maybe the worst part of the entire business: for two days he feels all nervy and clingy and wants to curl up in a ball somewhere and be doted on.

JB is a champ, though, a real champ at being cuddled aggressively and being all soft and warm, although Eggsy could do without his snort-panting in his ear.

"I just got off my heat," Eggsy tells him, and just barely stops himself from offering Harry his wrist to smell, like that will make Harry understand and forgive him. "It wasn't so bad this time. My last one was fucking brutal -- had to go to the safe room in hospital and all."

Harry doesn't respond.

"The doc got real angry," remembers Eggsy. "She wanted to know where my alpha was to leave me alone like that, and then she got madder because I said I didn't have no alpha. She made me run a million fuckin' tests, too."

JB tries to lick Eggsy's nose and mostly smears pugsnot all over his face, but affectionately. 

Eggsy stays beside Harry for a while, as JB settles down to snorting in his sleep.

* * *

Kingsman nurses have taken to dropping off a lunch tray with Eggsy so he doesn't have to sneak in protein bars and stale biscuits. He eats jelly one-handed as he scrolls through a tablet with the other, reading up on how to properly file reports. Seems like Harry underrepresented the amount of paperwork Eggsy'll have to sort out. Seems like Harry maybe told Eggsy next to nothing about what Kingsman actually _do_.

Sometimes the nurses look at him sympathetically, as if he's waiting for Harry because he -- because -- Eggsy snaps that line of thought off real sharp. It's just that he only jives with less than a handful of people here. Rox is great, and Merlin's all right but he keeps things all business. Eggy's invested, right, and if you want to get technical, Eggsy's known him since he was a wee sprog. It's natural he'd want to make sure Harry were taken care of, and anyway it's quiet, minus the beeping monitors or the bustling when the staff need to adjust tubes and whatnot.

The excuse sounds so weak that he doesn't dare offer it to the nurses. It just feels right. Waiting with Harry and all. Plus no one'll come looking, 'cept maybe Rox or Merlin. 

He's smuggled JB in, or the staff has pretended not to see JB's half-grown muzzle sticking out of his jacket. He's almost too big to be carried around like this.

It's only an hour or so of bone-dry reading until Eggsy starts to slump in his chair like always. It's murder on his neck, sleeping in the chair, but it's a universal rule that recruits drop where they can, when they can. Roxy's been found napping under desks and in closets, once or twice. Eggsy ain't been this tired all the time since Marine training in Devon. 

JB's snoring on his boots, and the cozy weight of it follows him down into a nap. 

There's a strange half-awareness that comes with him. Eggsy knows he's sprawled in the chair next to Harry in his hospital bed, and for a while that's exactly what he dreams. The hospital sounds are a distant lull, but then he's dreaming about his Gran dying of pneumonia, hooked up to tubes and such, watching him with rheumy eyes over the edge of her oxygen mask. He's ten, and his mum's in the corner crying into crumpled tissues. Dean nudges him toward the bed until Eggsy's knees knock against the plastic sides.

"Hi, Gran," he says.

"Hello, Eggsy," say Harry Hart, sitting upright in the bed dressed full out in his tailored suit and specs. He could use a shave and a haircut. Eggsy's thought about just giving him a haircut sometimes. Smuggling in scissors with JB. They'd let him, maybe. Omega caregiving instincts, omega grooming urges, whatever the fuck would let him make Harry look posh and polished like he's supposed to. 

Then he's kneeling next to Eggsy, who's so young he ain't really sure what dead means. He keeps expecting his da to come back when his training's over, but his mum says he's gone away somewhere else. Eggsy feels sad about it, and he keeps sneaking into the closet to smell his dad's shirts, but the man holding the medal, he smells good too, spicy and warm in a way that cuts through all the pine-scented Christmas decorations he helped his mum put up. Eggsy could curl up and sleep.

"Hello, Eggsy," he says again. He takes Eggsy's favorite snowglobe but gives Eggsy that medal instead. "Take care of your mum."

Eggsy nods, but he ain't need to be told. The man with the medal reaches out and squeezes Eggsy's shoulder. Eggsy feels even sleepier; he might drop off right where he is. But he's already asleep, ain't he, right by Harry's side. He's taking care of Harry like he was supposed to take care of his mum, the way he'd take care of Daisy or Rox.

His arm still feels Harry's hand on it, broad and real comforting. He wakes up like that, blinking back memory. He hasn't thought about meeting Harry in a long time, and on purpose, too: it ain't a happy memory. Christmas and his da's dead, some man in a fancy suit gave Eggsy a medal. Eggsy cracks a yawn, and he _still_ feels that weight on his arm. 

When he looks over at Harry, he meets his eyes. They're open. They're staring straight at Eggsy. Eggsy looks dumbly from Harry to Harry's arm, outstretched and trembling, before it slips away. Harry's eyes flutter closed in the same breath.

It takes him a second -- several seconds -- but then he's scrambling up so fast JB gives a surprised and unhappy yip and Eggsy's tablet clatters to the floor.

"Oi," he yells, fumbling for the call button on the remote near Harry's side. His eyes are glued to Harry's face, which is as lax as it was before. He wants to shake him, see if his eyes'll spring open again, but he feels bad just thinking about it. "Hey," he tries again.

Two nurses come running in, and they immediately start checking Harry's vitals. Eggsy refuses to be moved from where he is, so they have to work around him. He gets an elbow to his side at one point, but he can't make himself stop hovering.

"He's awake. I swear he was, he opened his eyes, he was _lookin'_ at me, I --"

The nurses keep working, trying the same tricks they always do to measure Harry's responsiveness. Desperation fills his chest as Harry keeps on lying there, totally inert.

"He touched me," he says. 

"Still comatose, but maybe up a level," one of them says to the other, and then she finally looks at Eggsy. "I'm sorry, Mr. Unwin, but this is typical of coma patients. They slip in and out a lot. It's promising, though --"

"I know that," he says, snappish, and then rubs his hands over his face so he'll calm down and stop acting like a prat. "Ain't there something you can do for him?"

"He's got to do it on his own, Mr. Unwin," the other one says, adjusting something on Harry's IV setup. "I'm sure he appreciates the company, though." She gives Eggsy a sedate little smile that flashes cheeky in her eyes and pats Harry's hand on the way out.

"Yeah," Eggsy says to the room. He slowly sits back into his chair, heart pounding, unresolved.

* * *

It's not a week before Harry wakes up for real. 

Harry wakes up, and he looks at Eggsy and gives him a small smile, like he's proud of him, like he's happy to see Eggsy still here. His eyes are warm even if his voice is as cool and composed as always. If Eggsy can ignore his urge to preen and offer his neck. Something about the vanished barrier of his glasses -- of course Eggsy's seen him without them, but it ain't like Harry's eyes were open much in the last _several months_ \-- makes the weight of his attention sharper. Eggsy has a hard time standing still under it. 

Things are going too well to last, of course. 

"Hmm," Merlin says, using gloved fingers to tilt Eggy's chin upwards. Eggsy obediently lets him prod, and it's pretty much the gentlest anyone's been with him during an exam, though Merlin is about as inviting as a cactus, both in scent and bearing. "It is quite… engorged."

Eggsy's silent chortle is seen only by the ceiling and whatever cameras are trained on him. Merlin has crinkled his placid face into a squint and is pressing his fingers to the edges of Eggy's swollen gland. The swollen part is new, but not the expression; Eggy's been felt up by specialists and doctors and even Merlin before, and all of them look mystified or outright annoyed by his freak biology. Eggy's used to it. It'll take a lot more than a swollen gland to fuck up his day. Maybe like a full-scale apocalypse would do it, but Eggy's downright chuffed: he has yet to fail out of the Kingsman trials, and Harry's awake with unscrambled brains.

"Maybe I've got a cold," he suggests. "That can cause, what, inflammation?"

Merlin flicks a look at him and touches Eggy's shoulder to let him know they're done. "Not of the bonding gland. What do they teach them at these schools these days?" He snaps off the latex gloves like someone who has a lot of practice at it, and bins them without looking at the can.

"Nothin' like medicine," Eggsy says, knowing perfectly well he hasn't got a cold.

As far as Eggsy knows, Roxy was the last of them to go into rut, and if he were going to swell up for anyone out of that lot, it'd have been her. But it's been at least a month since the last time he was around Roxy or any other alpha in prerut, and he only woke up with it tender that morning. He's never really lost sleep over his biological quirks, but he figures doing his due diligence this time will save him trouble later, in case they try and throw him out on his arse for not disclosing or summat. Maybe Merlin can do something to the gland to get it to go down, spare Eggsy from having to pop his collar every time he's in the same room as Charlie. 

"So what's the verdict?" he asks, pushing at the gland with his fingertips like he'd worry a sore tooth with his tongue. It doesn't hurt, exactly, but fussing with it makes it tingle. It's always been a little hard lump on his throat, and it feels strange and rather squishy. "Are there prerut alphas wandering around and no one told you?" Eggsy clucks. "Ain't very professional, not when there's an unbonded, helpless omega to account for."

"There's always alphas around," says Merlin, frowning at him. "You know that." 

Eggsy does know that. Most of the actual agents are alphas -- probably because they're all adrenaline junkies -- but a lot of the support staff are betas. There's maybe two or three omegas besides Eggsy that he's seen around, and most of them are in Merlin's division. Eggsy is always passing by alphas in the hall and in the training rooms, and they all sniff in his direction and then politely ignore his status. "But not in rut," he says.

"No," says Merlin. "Most of the agents choose to be put on suppressants in the field."

"Don't you have to get off those at least once a year?" says Eggsy. "What if --"

"Fertility," says Merlin, very dry, "is not a primary concern of the typical Kingsman agent." He sighs heavily, like it's Eggsy's fault he's standing here trying to figure out why Eggsy's body seems to be vaguely interested in an alpha for the first time ever. "Look, are you absolutely sure you've never contracted a latent bond?"

"With who?" says Eggsy.

"It wouldn't have to be consummated," says Merlin. "Even a scent bond would go a lot to explain this bloody thing acting up."

"Bruv," says Eggsy, "if I smell an alpha I sneezes or I get real mad about it. Where was I supposed to smell one and decide I liked it?"

Merlin sighs.

"Besides," Eggsy says, rolling his shoulders to let out some tension, "you really think there's some alpha out there who got a whiff of this and said 'Ta, I'd rather not?'"

"Please, alphas would always rather _knot_ ," says Merlin. "Well, lad, unless you've run across the one alpha in all the world for you, I don't know what your beastly biology is doing now. It might be a stress reaction. I can put you on bond suppressants in case it's living with all those alphas that's doing something." 

Eggsy groans but laughs too. Then he makes a face and shakes his head. Heat suppressants are bad enough: he can't imagine what taking bond suppressants must be like. His mum had to take them after his dad passed and it was a misery that he still remembers. He thinks in part she shacked up with Dean to get some relief from their numbing qualities. "Are we done, bruv? Only I got to walk JB."

"Go away, you wretched beast," says Merlin, pointing to the door. As Eggsy slips off the table and toward the door, Merlin adds, "Come in, Harry, we're done." 

Harry opens the door and steps courteously aside for Eggsy. 

"That's fucking creepy, it is," says Eggsy, eyebrows up. "When do I get a pair of them glasses?"

"Soon enough," says Harry. He smiles at Eggsy, and as Eggsy heads out he hears Merlin say, "You're not due for your shot yet, Galahad."

* * *

If Eggsy's any judge -- and he is -- usually this con gets played out with one of each, alpha, beta, and omega, to see what the mark reacts to. As it is, they're making do with male alpha, female alpha and male omega. It's no difference to him, as long as he wins the contest. 

Eggsy's picked up a few betas here and there, but this one puzzles him: she doesn't seem like she wants to be picked up at all but at the same time, she's listening them with every appearance of attention and attraction. It's weird, is all. 

Also, is champagne supposed to taste this rank? Cos Eggsy's had better champagne back home, lifted from a shop and drunk with his mates. There's a funny taste to it, bitter.

"Does this champagne taste rank?" he says, and the next thing he remembers he's slumping up against Roxy, smelling vanilla and anise and gunpowder all at once, and Roxy's hair sliding against his face before he --

\-- wakes up, tied to a train track of all the fucking things. 

Eggsy's _fuckin_ life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meg is drinking something with vodka and pineapple, but mostly vodka, so you get me (amare/Amanda/Gin/she of many names) this time. (No, for real. Writing tonight was a mutual exercise in wrangling cats.)
> 
> MEG: ookafoos ao dE  
> GIN: wjat pm ertj  
> GIN: WHAT ON EARTH  
> GIN: wow.  
> GIN: umd  
> MEG: maybe I should stop drinking the pineapple stuff  
> MEG: LOOK TECHNICALLY IM DYSLEXIC AND ALL  
> MEG: i appear to have drunkenly written a scene inside another scene  
> MEG: or was that you  
> GIN: me????  
> GIN: idk
> 
> Thanks to everyone who chilled out and waited for a second chapter, and to the usual suspects who laughed at our knotting puns in the doc. And thanks to everyone who kudos'd and commented and bookmarked. Y'all are great.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd probably blame Pru more but if I write this she has to finish the movie star press tour AU and I've got needs. PONY IT UP PAL. 
> 
> This is mostly written by Meg but frankly if Amanda spent any more time smacking adverbs out of Meg's hands, Meg would have to pay her real money, so you know.
> 
> also the amount of child bride jokes made is a number between OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE THE WORST and JUST STOPPPPPPPP


End file.
